Being a new type of virus without a history of treatment to look into, there are always many queries that come up with respect to Covid – 19. One such popular question is the possibility of reinfection in a person.
Consultant Physician from Mangaluru Dr. Srinivas Kakkilaya said that there have not been any confirmed cases of reinfection from India, even though some claims have come up. “Almost 90 crore people in this world have been affected by the disease but the claims of reinfection remain unproven,” he said, “Many reports from all over the world has been published about the disease and by looking at that, it seems extremely unlikely for a person to get reinfected.” Dr Kakkilaya explained that the immune response developed in a person is robust and has proven to be long-lasting.
Answering the query of whether those without the symptoms can transmit the disease, Dr. Kakkillaya said that theoretically speaking, they cannot transmit. “Those without symptoms only know they are affected once they take the RTPCR test, and there is no hard evidence which proves this,” he said.
Dr Kakkilaya said that a person can go back to work or his daily life after 14 days of isolation and quarantine as the period of possibility of transmission will be over by then. “Even after the person becomes Covid negative, his body might show post covid symptoms like body pain and so on which is part of the healing process of the body and there is nothing to worry about it,” he said.
Speaking further on the possibility of catching the disease without being in close contact with the Covid positive person, he said that this is highly unlikely to happen. “The common mode of transmission of the virus is through air by speaking more than 10 minutes, coughing and sneezing while standing face to face,” he said. He clarified that the virus is not spread through things, clothes or any such surfaces. “The initial worries of people have been settled once it was proven that use of air conditioners, and cooler are hardly posing any risk to people,” he added.
